The whole world has been catapulted into a time of uncertainty and change. With news headlines being dominated by COVID-19 cases and mortality rates, it can be hard to find the positive in this bizarre situation. But as always, Elephant Family endeavours to bring some light and hope, and this update is no different!
We have been inundated with images and videos of wildlife in India taking advantage of this time of calm whilst everyone is in lockdown.
Elephant herds have been seen nonchalantly strolling through villages, completely undisturbed by the people that would otherwise have shouted and thrown objects at them until they moved away.
In this fantastic sequence of photographs you can see a wild gaur taking on a fence as if in its own showjumping competition.
In a really significant sighting, a family of black bears were spotted in a garden in Ooty. For bears to wander so close to civilisation is highly unusual, demonstrating that due to the quiet during lockdown the animals feel confident and safe enough to venture closer towards developed areas.
Much like some of what we’ve been seeing from around the world (at least the ones that are not fake news), these updates remind us of the life these creatures could and should be living.
In the year that was originally dedicated to promoting the importance of biodiversity and battling the crisis, it is vital that humans find ways to respect the wildlife we share this planet with and learn to coexist peacefully alongside it. Not just for the sake of the animals and ecosystems that support them, but for our own personal and economic health too.
Peaceful coexistence between humans and wildlife is the ultimate aim of Elephant Family and the work that we support across Asia enables us to strive towards it. It is the hope of the whole organisation that the lessons we are learning from seeing these videos and images stay with us even after restrictions are lifted.